Bio:

Denis Turcu joined the Allen Institute and the University of Washington as a Shanahan Family Foundation Fellow in September 2024. He received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Columbia University, working with Prof. Larry Abbott and Prof. Nathaniel Sawtell. His graduate studies focused on computational models of active electro-sensing, a complex foraging behavior of weakly electric fish. He developed and combined a physics model of the behavior, an input-output model of electroreceptors based on local field potential data, and artificial neural network models to investigate how weakly electric fish extract behaviorally relevant information from electrosensory stimuli. He also investigated how decision making could be supported by biologically plausible circuits, such as recurrent and highly sparse networks similar to connectivity in the neocortex, where decision likely take place.

As a Shanahan Fellow, Denis is interested in how external synaptic modulators affect plasticity and what is the role of various neuromodulators in learning. He is also interested in the role of sensory feedback in producing motor activity that is robust to perturbations. Denis is enthusiastic about contributing to the Allen Institute’s mission of open, team science and collaborating with the neuroscience community at the University of Washington, by seeking computational principles that enable neural circuits to function remarkably well.